Which a Head May Hold

WHICH A HEAD MAY HOLD

The rules and the images we imagine to be true change subtly. Very soon
there is a Technicolor tinge, an ambiguity
concerning facts that have been our primary
sources of stability.

A quality that must be re-defined becomes the norm,
and has evolved as a kind of necessity,
achieves complexity,
replacing all of the simple yeas and nays

that previously characterized our perceptions,
permits functions that would otherwise be incomprehensible:
the quiet motions of a hand, the ability
to malleate materials into an infinity of shapes,

allows it to hold a pen,
type a series of letters on the keyboard of a computer,
a million cause and effect combinations
that become evident in the course of one’s ordinary peregrinations.

We think, for example, we delve, into the physical characteristics
of the universe. We do our best to prevent the disruption
of synaptic connectivity. In the end it becomes evident
that time’s arrow cannot be frozen: a thought, a memory,

a spontaneous gesture, may permit
the fantasy of movement into the heretofore.
It is like a seat-belt, keeping us from falling off the track,
a kind of Darwinian hold onto one’s sanity.

So, in the midst of this, wrinkles fading
without even the assistance of a plastic surgeon,
that precarious touch, that delectable event,
now long past, almost ghostly, wraith-like,

ostensibly unreachable, stays put,
if only for a moment. You discover
that in the life you have led there is beauty,
and you have the temerity to call it real.

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